8 Reasons You Shouldn't Do Everything Internally

John Hall
, ContributorOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Bad habits are tough to break as you grow as a leader. As a young leader, I always felt I had to do everything in-house. Every penny mattered, so even if our attempt was half-assed, we were doing it ourselves. Realizing that you can’t do everything internally — and that it’s better to hire outside resources — is a hard truth to take in.

If you need to feel better about your decision to outsource your efforts, here are some things that will reaffirm your choice to let some internal control go:

1. Consider the opportunity costs.

There’s an opportunity cost to everything. Too often, we forget to value our time and attention. Most of the time, my company deals with leaders within an organization, many of whom are very talented and could potentially do themselves what we’re doing for them. However, is it worth their time to try to establish the relationships and maintain the processes? That’s a question to ask yourself about anything that someone else could do in your place. Startups aren’t often offered this luxury— it’s difficult to talk yourself out of being frugal, but opt to be frugal with your time, rather than your money.

2. Recognize that you’re not the best at everything.

You aren’t the best at everything; even Michael Jordan tried to pull off being a two-sport star, and look where that got him. If somebody’s trying to convince you he can do it all, he’s full of it and likely just trying to sell you. It’s important to demand the best — and it’s just as important to recognize that if it’s not you, you need to find out who is.

3. Give your employees the opportunity to learn from outsiders.

If you’ve identified the best of the best, you’ve afforded your team the opportunity to learn the right way to manage a task. There’s a difference between seeing the best handle real situations and seeing everyone else manage them. If you later decide to bring the task in-house, your employees will have received training from the experts. It’s important to hire somebody for this role who complements your department and makes a point to not overshadow or disrupt your team.

4. Avoid bureaucratic problems — it’s worth the cost alone.

There’s a lot of top talent working for large corporations, but there’s still a lack of effectiveness because of the layers of red tape those experts have to wade through internally. If you see this as a barrier in your company, then look at hiring the impacted area out. It will be a pain to get company approval initially, but once you find the right partner, you’ll eliminate a lot of red tape.

5. Note that focus itself is a valuable commodity.

It’s difficult to be effective when you’re pulled in too many directions. In a recent article in Inc., Chip Paucek talked about the focus issues associated with growing Hooked on Phonics and how those lessons translated into effectively running his current company, 2U. When you’re responsible for multiple areas, it’s impossible to keep your productivity — in any of the areas — at a healthy level.

6. Realize that outsourcing carries built-in accountability.

As dumb as this sounds, it’s valuable to pay somebody to make sure things get done. If it’s important to the future of your company to accomplish a goal, then the ROI of hiring it out is evident. Often, I see a company claim it needs to do something, but the internal position responsible for the goal has 1,000 other things that need to be accomplished first.

7. Calculate the internal cost.

On the surface, doing things internally always seems cheaper. After digging into your books, you might think differently. Payroll taxes, insurance, salaries, training costs, and other overhead add up — not to mention the cost of that employee leaving after he’s been trained. An excellent service is typically more effective than an internal process, and as long as you pay your bill on time, it isn’t going anywhere.

8. Acknowledge the outside opportunities you could create for yourself.

If you pick a good partner, he’ll usually have some connections and opportunities that can bring a lot of value to your company. A position within our company is solely responsible for helping our clients out, whether that means getting a client a valuable intro or referring a potential client. Many times, we have resources that can help clients outside of our agreed-upon arrangement.